mutteringhousewife

I had to get out the sewing machine to patch up the giant hole my fibreglass cast has torn in our bed sheets, so I thought while I was at it, I may as well whip myself up a handbag. You see, the one I’m using is perfectly adequate, but its size and composition mean that now that I’m able to hoist myself about on crutches at a fairly reasonable clip it does tend to drag up my clothing as I move along in a kind of ratcheting manner. Not desirable. All I want is a handbag whose handle will fit over my neck and shoulder and that will fit my wallet and phone in it. And some car keys. And some butter menthols.

I actually have a bag that fits this purpose, bought on holidays at Crescent Head.

There are two problems with it. One is that it’s too deep, as at most handbags in this style. I don’t want to stick my whole arm in the thing. The other is that it is my receptacle for the bits of my dream handbag:

And I can’t bring myself to repurpose it. I also need to make a few prototypes before assembling the dream bag, so here is prototype one.

It really only took me about an hour to make. There were a few breaks for arguing with a woman about what the Town Hall will be charging us for the Verdi Requiem and it certainly won’t be nearly twice what they quoted us. I also had to ring up the doctor to apologise for forgetting to come in for an appointment, that was embarrassing. That very rarely happens, I had it in the diary and everything. Perhaps I was subconsciously annoyed that my regular doctor had the temerity to be off having a baby. The strap is leftover material from the Great Soldier Costume Adventure which you’ll find in the archives from last year. I just took a piece of fake black panne whatever that somewhat reminiscent of velvet stuff is called and cut out a piece three times as big as I wanted the bag. I cut a third off and hemmed it, also hemmed the remaining piece. Then I sewed each piece onto the strap. I did have to pick it apart a few times because I have trouble envisioning things in 3D, but we got there in the end.

I did plan for it to be in use just for my remaining three weeks and two days of captivity, but I think with a fair bit of trimming and neatening up it will make a fairly nifty handbag to be put into regular rotation. I just won’t work on it around the time of my rescheduled doctor’s appointment.